Chapter One
Sailing through the clear skies of Berk aback a dragon truly was a liberating feeling. The weightless feel as you glide through the air and the exciting sensation of adrenaline coursing through your veins as you lose control over the directions in which you travel really were feelings that could not be rivalled with in many areas. Of course Hiccup got to enjoy this privilege on a daily basis. Every day the boy and his dragon arose from slumber to enjoy hours of freedom travelling the atmosphere at blinding speeds yet with utmost grace and serenity, only to repeat to the process again in the cool, crisp air of the evening sky.
Right now was no exception. Hiccup and Toothless braved the freezing cold mid-day temperatures to venture outdoors with their friends, it wasn't as if they had much choice in the matter anyway, it was on the chief's orders they were out here. It was a mission really. Hiccup and Astrid were to undertake the risk of scouting the furthest reaches of Berk's territory on patrol for enemy ships and/or potential threats. Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut were searching the areas closest to Berk's mainland and Fishleg's was somewhere in-between.
"It's a beautiful day today, isn't it?" Hiccup asked, forcing his voice through the thick onslaught of wind pushing against them so that his voice made it to Astrid's ears.
"No!" Astrid disagreed, rubbing her hands up and down her bare arms, "It's freezing!"
"I mean other than the terribly cold temperatures! It's not snowing or raining or hailing, just nice clear skies and white clouds!"
"Hiccup, I'm freezing my butt off up here. I'm not really focussing on the beauty of the outdoors; I'm a lot more bothered about finishing the task in hand so I can go home and warm by the fire!" The blonde teenager argued.
The overall climate of Berk was pretty cold anyway but the temperatures currently being endured as of now were well below freezing and enough to make even the toughest of Viking men shiver. Devastating Winter had just come to pass, so there wasn't much chance of a devastating storm but that wasn't to say there'd be no heavy snow or hail in the following days.
"Let's just get this done then, I hate to admit it but the cold is really starting to get to my leg." Sighed Hiccup as he subconsciously moved his left hand to rub his left thigh. Astrid glanced over at him with poorly concealed concern.
"We can head back if you want to. I'm sure Stoick would understand."
"No, I'll be fine, don't worry!" Hiccup dismissed with a light shake of his head. Beneath him, Toothless growled. "What is it, Bud?"
"Hiccup, what's happening?" Astrid was curious as to why the Night Fury had suddenly taken a cautious stance. As the four of them continued flying, Stormfly's dislike in the area abruptly became apparent, now both dragons had set up a defensive barrier of threatening noises. Their riders looked around yet could see nothing of much threat. There were only a variety of large rock columns protruding from the deep blue surface of the sea and a couple of undersized islands that were far too small for inhabitants.
"Whoa!" Hiccup yelped in surprise when Toothless suddenly jolted to a stop, the lanky teen was almost thrown out of the saddle from the sheer suddenness of the halt. Stormfly and Astrid were quick to repeat although not with nearly as much force as the former. "Toothless, Bud, what's going on?" Hiccup asked the darkly coloured, reptilian creature he was seated upon. Said dragon whipped his head around, his body following shortly after, to look in the opposing direction. Toothless barked loudly before continuing in his deeply voiced growling and rumbling. Hiccup could feel the dragon vibrating with every sound he made and it left the auburn haired boy feeling very on-edge.
"Stormfly, what is it?" Astrid questioned her own dragon as its pupils shrunk to slits and the tail became a dangerous weapon armed with row upon row of lethal spikes. Before any human reaction time could be counted for, both dragons swiftly evaded an oncoming arrow- unseen by their riders. "Where the hell did that arrow come from?!" Astrid cried with surprise.
"I have absolutely no idea!" Hiccup replied in the same manner of speaking as Astrid. Both looking towards the direction the arrow was shot from, they saw nothing. There were no ships and no people, or dragons for that matter, to be seen. Another arrow hurtled past an alarmingly fast speed towards them, if they weren't earlier; they felt they were definitely being targeted now. A maniacal laugh sliced through the air like a knife through butter. "I know that laugh!"
"What laugh?" Astrid was puzzled; she'd been too focussed on finding the location of their attacker to hear the display of utmost craziness. Hiccup flew lower to the water only to shoot back up again as another one of the pointed, wooden missiles was launched towards them. It was followed by another round of cackling.
"Dagur…" Hiccup muttered under his breath, Toothless made a loud, shrill noise of agreement. "Astrid! It's Dagur!"
"How do you know? I can't see him anywhere!"
"Hiccup's right! It is I, Dagur the Deranged!" An all too familiar voice sounded out as a man and a dragon revealed themselves from a large cavern in the side of one of the massive rock columns and flew towards them. It wasn't just any ordinary dragon, mind you, the majestic beast that emerged forth was nothing less than the mighty Skrill- and Dagur was riding it. "Look at me now, Hiccup! I have the Skrill under my control! That Night Fury will be mine!" He laughed with increased levels of insanity.
"Dagur, how on Earth did you get that Skrill?!" Hiccup shouted across at their demented enemy, "We re-froze it back in the glacier almost a year ago!"
"How I got such a wonder is none of your concern! All you need to worry about is saving that dragon!" The muscled man snapped back, a wide sinister grin creeping across his face.
"You're not getting Toothless!" Hiccup argued, exasperated.
"We won't let you!" Astrid continued, backing her friend up. Dagur raised one eyebrow,
"Think again." He stated simply before ordering the Skrill to fire lightening the in direction of the two teenagers and their dragons. Its two, rather small, front facing eyes narrowed to slits as it realised who his master's intended enemies were- it snarled in frustration when they both escaped the electrical violence and began flying away.
Both Hiccup and Astrid knew that they had very limited ideas to how they could even begin to face the Skrill, in the past; they'd almost been defeated by it by means of the lightening it controlled and emitted- which proved to be very dangerous. Hiccup also remembered that metal seemed to attract the fatal bolts of electricity, and the two of them sported quite a lot of the sturdy stuff. "Give it up whilst you still can, Hiccup! I will get what I want!"
"Leave us alone, Dagur! Your actions are going to start a war between our tribes, and nobody wants that!" Hiccup stressed, looking back over his shoulder once or twice to see their advancing opponents closing the gap between them.
"Wrong!" Dagur sung, "That's exactly what I want! I want to unleash a bloodthirsty, Berserker armada on Berk! I want to kill your dragon and I want you, Berkians, all on your knees beginning for mercy!"
"That's insane!" Yelled Astrid, she whipped Stormfly around and the scaly blue beast shot three precise spines, aiming more for Dagur than the Skrill. The formers' eyes narrowed, much like dragon he rode, as he attacked Astrid with another round of lightening, the girl and her dragon avoided the attack in the nick of time but sped up anyway. She got as close as she could to Hiccup and Toothless, without having the dragons' wings hit into one another, so they could talk without Dagur over-hearing.
"Hiccup, what are we going to do? We can't take Dagur on right now; he'd kill us both with that Skrill!" She exclaimed, she didn't want to retreat from battle but she also wanted to live to see Snoggletog.
"I know! We need to get to Berk and warn my dad!" Hiccup hissed glancing back once again at Dagur who was now practically radiating with absurdity.
"And how are we supposed to do that?" Astrid deadpanned
"I don't know! Stop pressuring me!" Hiccup's voice strained as he fought to keep from yelling yet tried to stay loud enough for Astrid to hear. Rather suddenly, Hiccup found himself almost colliding with a vast brick wall emerging from the sea.
Seaweed and small crustaceans were attached to it as the surprisingly calm waters lapped up at the sides. The wall seemed to stretch for miles upon miles and stood taller than three long boats stacked vertically upon each other, it had an eerie and rather mystical and magical presence. One minute they'd been bordering Berk's southern territories and now… well now Hiccup had no idea where they were, by the looks of things neither did Astrid nor Dagur.
"What the…" Astrid's voice trailed off as she slowly looked the wall up and down, how far south exactly had Dagur chased them?
"Who on earth would build a wall in the middle of the ocean?" Dagur suddenly shot out, throwing his arms into the air. The Skrill seemed to be getting impatient with just hovering there. Its deep-purple body rippled with blue electricity, all the way from its crested head to its spiked tail.
Dagur stayed a few feet behind Hiccup and Astrid, maybe if they stayed frozen with confusion and surprise long enough he could take them both down whilst they weren't expecting it. It was a pretty low blow but Dagur needed that Night Fury. The young chief slowly raised his wooden crossbow and loaded the arrow, before he could shoot either of them; both of his targets flew further up into the atmosphere, as though trying to find out what was over the other side of the visibly aged wall. Ordering the Skrill to move closer, he closed one eye and aimed carefully, he brought his long, sweaty fingers around the trigger with anticipation and, without a second thought, fired.
Luckily, Toothless' impeccable senses alerted him to the happenings behind him. He snapped Hiccup out of his reverie and before either boy or dragon even knew what they were doing; Hiccup had forcefully manoeuvred Toothless into Stormfly, effectively pushing her out of the way of the course of the wooden bullet's path, to save the unsuspecting Viking atop the Deadly Nadder from the oncoming arrow.
"Astrid!" He screamed to her, just before they collided, to get her attention. Consequently, the sharp weapon embedded itself into his shoulder, it went in directly underneath his leather shoulder pad on his riding harness, and tore straight through his green tunic and invited itself into the soft flesh underneath. The green-eyed Viking immediately felt fiery pain sear through his shoulder, he gritted his teeth as he felt the area of the wound heat up as deep red began to ooze out and dampen his clothing.
Hearing Hiccup crying out in pain, Toothless began to panic- not knowing whether to fly away and find land or to attack Dagur who was now gleefully laughing and preparing for a second shot.
"Hiccup! No!" Astrid cried. All the commotion startled Stormfly and caused her to uncontrollably fire a set of spines in random directions, two of which found targets.
One found its way to the Skrill's shoulder, sending him into a fury. The pained dragon screeched in detest before attempting to throw Dagur off of its back. However, before that happened, the mighty dragon managed to electrocute the young chief with its hazardous bolts. Dagur howled out in agony at the unexpected attack, crying out further when the Skrill began losing altitude at a rapid pace and landed them both in the icy sea stretching out below.
As a result, the water became a death trap. Dagur realised this rather quickly. His eyes widened comically as he rushed towards the nearest rock column. Luckily he managed to climb up onto it and save himself from what could have potentially been a particularly painful death.
The other spine tore straight through Toothless' artificial tail fin. Without the fin properly intact, the Night Fury was unable to fly.
Toothless, already meters above Stormfly in his attempt to save both himself and his rider from the earlier assault of spikes, fought to keep in the air despite the large, tearing hole in the middle of the bright red fabric of his prosthetic, as he knew Hiccup was injured and crash landing would make everything much worse.
With a clouded and confused mind, Toothless flew up and over the wall without thinking; a brilliant white flash of light scorched both of their eyes, and a burning pain suddenly racked through both of their bodies. But before the light stole their vision, Hiccup had caught sight of what was below him.
When he was fighting Dagur, it appeared that the ocean continued this side of the wall, yet when the boy happened to glance down he noticed there was grassy land beneath them.
Both Viking and dragon felt themselves losing their grips on consciousness as they plummeted on a downwards trajectory. Spinning in impossible circles, Toothless couldn't manage to get Hiccup to safety in his wings- there was nothing either of them could do. He gave one final roar of fear before being dragged into darkness by the fists of unconsciousness, Hiccup was soon to follow. He heard Toothless' roar and a faint feminine voice screaming his name muffle in his ears before everything went dark- yet they were still falling. At least he wouldn't feel the impact of the landing immediately, if he were still alive to feel at all that was.
What nobody knew, however, was how far away from home they actually were. That wall was made by the Gods to never be found. It was supposed to be too far south and too much of a dangerous journey for ships from the Archipelago to reach, and too unknown, isolated and practically invisible due to a form of magic (not to mention set in the middle of nowhere) to be discovered by anyone in the other lands.
The wall had two very noteworthy purposes; it separated two extremely different worlds- different in more ways imaginable, but more importantly, it prevented anyone from accidently stumbling into the arduous duties already ingrained into the fate of the prophesized beings.
And, unfortunately for Hiccup and Toothless, the unknown had a lot of things in store for them.